Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Bushmiller]

I've mentioned it before, but it's absolutely worth subscribing to Renew Economys newsletter.

The hard-charging change to renewables, from the DAILY updates are.... UNBELIEVABLE.

SA can now supply 100% of it needs with renewables, Gigabatteries being installed everywhere, permits issued for gigantic wind and solar farms.... and MONSTER offshore windfarms that are almost Science Fiction!

VERY exciting times.

WP

I picked up on this one in particular:

Victoria Big Battery now registered as biggest non hydro player in FCAS market | RenewEconomy

I would point out that it's forte is mostly in the area of frequency control rather than generation and it plays a large part in compensating for solar, which is at the moment unable to regulate frequency.

Before we get too excited about SA, and I accept it is a landmark, we have to remember renewables are capable of providing 100% under certain conditions only: Namely, the conditions of wind and sun have to be just right and the demand has to be very low, In addition we are only talking of sustaining this for a few hours: Not for 24hrs, which of course has to be the ultimate goal. If SA did not have the 500MW interconnector available from Victoria, they would be cactus. We are moving, generally speaking, in the right direction, but there is a very long way to go.

I mention this not to be negative, but to caution about complacency and the current government line that private enterprise will fix the crisis. It won't unless it can make money and make money for a long time to come.

Regards
Paul

[havabeer69]

another old girl down

Lithgow’s iconic Wallerawang coal-fired power station partly demolished | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site


for those not interested in clicking the news article, wallerwang station actually demolished




I know quite a few people are waiting now for Lidells closure to see what it does to the electricity market in NSW

[woodPixel]

It seems very stupid to be smashing up useful infrastructure, even if it's a monster.

It may be trendy, but it would be far more sensible to be putting its replacement in place first...

Bushmiller, I agree with you on above. One battle does not make the war.... Nor does one's days capacity... But there will soon be 2, then 4, then 30... Then...

I'm hopeful that renewables will help us toward the job of healing the planet.

[Beardy]

WP
I mention this not to be negative, but to caution about complacency and the current government line that private enterprise will fix the crisis. It won't unless it can make money and make money for a long time to come.

Regards
Paul

Interesting comment, I would of thought that it was a hide cash cow for whoever comes up with the solution and private enterprise would be all over it chasing the pit of gold?

[Bushmiller]

Interesting comment, I would of thought that it was a hide cash cow for whoever comes up with the solution and private enterprise would be all over it chasing the pit of gold?

Beardy

I appreciate that may not be what we wish to hear, but our electricity market is driven fundamentally, but not exclusively, by private enterprise. If the market, following the law of supply and demand, is driven down price-wise during the day, it does not only impact fossil fuelled generators, it impacts the solar and wind farms too. If somebody can resolve the storage issue, they would be able to buy Tasmania from their petty cash and it would indeed be a license to print money.

This is an interesting article published today:

Alan Kohler: Ignore the spin. Australia already has two carbon taxes (thenewdaily.com.au)

Self interest of government and fossil related business are prejudicing the future.

Regards
Paul

[Chris Parks]

Then there is this

Tesla batteries seen undercutting Australia’s $7.1b Marinus Link project (smh.com.au)

On a totally different scale but this is somewhat like my assertion that areas and towns will start to generate locally off the main grid.

[Chris Parks]

This is interesting, from what I can gather it is a suburban community mini grid but it is not clear if they are connected or totally disconnected from the main grid.

Perth suburbs chosen for $35 million virtual power plant combining solar and batteries (msn.com)

[BobL]

This is interesting, from what I can gather it is a suburban community mini grid but it is not clear if they are connected or totally disconnected from the main grid.

Perth suburbs chosen for $35 million virtual power plant combining solar and batteries (msn.com)

They're still connected AND they have to agree to give control of any major smart appliances over to the energy authority.

Residents who agreed to opt-in would have their appliances managed remotely."If you've got an energy asset that's using a lot of energy, we can communicate with that smart appliance for certain parts of the day and we can reduce the pressure by just asking that air conditioner to go to 75 or 50 per cent of its energy use."We'll only do it for 10 or 15 minutes in a way that customers don't even notice, but they get rewarded for participating.

My guess this will means on a hot (40ºC) day and there's no Fremantle doctor you won't get your full AC in the evenings when everyone's ACs are still running flat chat

[russ57]

Something odd apparently happened in the energy market last night. Ou energy provider, amber, who passes on wholesale rates, warned of price spikes forecast by the market operator. This happens occasionally but usually predicted well in advance, but yesterday there was almost no warning. The predicted price went sky high ($18/kwh) but in fact always resolved at the end of the interval to around 40c, which is marginally high but nothing special.
Apparently investigations are in hand. Annoying.

[BobL]

They're still connected AND they have to agree to give control of any major smart appliances over to the energy authority.
My guess this will means on a hot (40ºC) day and there's no Fremantle doctor you won't get your full AC in the evenings when everyone's ACs are still running flat chat

Found out a bit more - apparently handing control over will be optional and it comes with unspecified financial benefit.
I assume this means rates for some of the power you draw back out off the grid in a non peak period will be reduced..
The control will not be used to turn things completely off but to reduce your appliances power draw - eg turning an AC down from 100% of 75 or 50%.

[Bushmiller]

Something that has not widely been explained is that as we progressively transition to renewables, the demand for electricity will increase and this is for at least a couple of reasons. Firstly as we have discussed before there will be huge demand through the day to charge batteries to store energy for the "sunless" hours.

Secondly there will be a genuine increase in demand: All those forms of transport that now use petroleum fuels will go either directly to electric or if hydrogen gains a foothold indirectly. I don't have any figures for this, but I can imagine it to be a very significant increase.

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

I have made mention in the past on this thread that solar and wind power are unable to regulate frequency, which is an essential aspect of electrical generation. There are revenues to be made from participating in this aspect in addition to the MW pricing. However, I do need to point out that it is not impossible for solar and wind to regulate frequency, it is just that in Australia the owners of these renewable plants have chosen not to incorporate such mechanisms to allow this to happen (primarily because the technology is new and probably expensive too). The storage batteries are superb in this area and to some extent may be able to compensate for the deficiencies of renewables, but on a large enough scale this is probably down the track a way.

This article explains a little more if you are interested:

Let’s talk about FCAS – WattClarity

"FCAS" stands for Frequency Control and Ancillary Services.

Regards
Paul

[Chris Parks]

A couple of interesting articles on supply, pricing and community batteries

Solar power prices are falling. What does this mean for our household electricity bills? - ABC News

Yackandandah's community battery may not be 'big' but it's enough to 'petrify' energy providers - ABC News

[woodPixel]

And how about this startlingly obvious idea....

Have a hill, plus excess cheap electricity? Well, put giant blocks of rock into carts and haul them up a hill.

When the juice is needed, roll them back down....

Just like stored hydro, but on rails

ARES North America '-' The Power of Gravity

The GravityLineTM storage system is made up of multiple 5MW tracks and can vary in size from 5 MW to 1 GW of power and an equivalent range of energy (MWh to GWh) depending upon weight and number of mass cars, slope and distance. ARES’ GravityLineTM design boasts duration flexibility of between 15 mins and 10 hours

[pintek]

Secondly there will be a genuine increase in demand: All those forms of transport that now use petroleum fuels will go either directly to electric or if hydrogen gains a foothold indirectly. I don't have any figures for this, but I can imagine it to be a very significant increase.

Was only talking about this to a mate the other day - what is the evening peak load going to look like when everyone gets home, chucks on the AC, turns on the oven and plugs in their electric car? Considering how many vehicles are in an average neighborhood, each with their own EV 15A charger drawing around 10A or more each is going to add up real quick. A lot of clients want us to install fast chargers which can draw up to 40A on a single phase supply, but often their mains don't have the capacity (house built pre 1980). Obviously they won't all be plugged in at the same time or drawing high current for the entire night, but we are certainly moving maximum demand on domestic consumer mains closer to capacity. I put 3 phase onto my place mainly for the shed machinery, but certainly had this in mind for futureproofing.